Listen To Dionysius

September 20, 1986

READING your editorial headlined ''Dr. Strangebudget,'' which says the Pentagon's new budget of about $290 billion -- double what it was in 1980 -- epitomizes the unwillingness of poltiicians to pay the nation's bills, I was reminded of something Dionysius the Elder said in the fourth century B.C.

Dionysius, the defender of Syracuse against the Carthaginians, said: ''It's a fact of life, that neither time nor circumstance will alter. That those who have the greater power will rule over those of lesser power.''

I am of Scotch ancestry and I abhor waste, but there is no substitute for victory.